(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



The Daily Bucket - rain in the PNW at last [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2022-10-22

Pacific crabapple

I know a lot of Pacific Northwesterners will be complaining soon about the cold and dark and mud (some are already haha) but there was a general sense of great relief yesterday when the weather finally broke. After four months of virtually no rain — an unprecedented stretch of drought in this region— it finally started raining yesterday. Not a deluge, but that’s a good thing since the ground is rock hard and it will take some dampening to soak in rather than run off.

Update Sat. morning 8am: our CoCoRAHS rain gauge measured 0.27” just now (previous 24 hours). Numbers consistent across the county, typical for a WNW wind flow.

The horrible pall of wildfire smoke we’ve been under for the past week or so has blown away too, thanks to the onshore flow of clean air from the ocean.

Trees and shrubs have been significantly stressed by the long drought, wetlands are dry, rivers are low. Wildlife has been having a tough time too. It’ll take days and days of rain to green up the moss and fill rivers for fall salmon runs but this is a start.

I couldn’t resist going out for a little walk in the rain, through the woods and down to the beach. Vegetation by the road is dusty and crispy; most pictures are from a path that cuts across what’s usually a wet woodland, where shrubs fared better. Deciduous shrubs are still hanging on to their last foliage.



Alders dropped foliage early this year

Salal is evergreen

Snowberry

Bracken fern

Nootka rose hips

Salmonberry

In my yard:

Hairy woodpecker

Vine Maple

Down at the beach, the rain was falling on a flat calm bay. No wind makes it easy to use an umbrella.

Rainy day. Grebes, gulls and the FOS Red-breasted merganser

Mew gulls

Horned grebes in the rain

Brief video clip of the grebes in the falling rain:



The rain feels and smells good. Fall has finally truly arrived now.

Big leaf Maple fallen leaves will have a chance to mat together now.

🫧

THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/22/2130456/-The-Daily-Bucket-rain-in-the-PNW-at-last

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/